A senior lawyer and human rights actvisit, Femi Falana (SAN), has alleged that some powerful governors in the All Progressives Congress (APC) are frustrating assent to the electoral bill by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking at TheCable Colloquium on Wednesday, the senior lawyer said the affected governors are putting pressure on Buhari not to assent to the bill because “they know manipulation will be reduced to the minimum” if it becomes law.
The president has up till December 19 to assent to the bill which was transmitted to him by the National Assembly on November 19.
Falana said there are no indication that the bill will see the light of day, adding that the president could use the excuse that assenting to it may lead to confusion especially that the 2023 is around the corner.
He said, “The bill can be rejected only on one ground. The 2018 bill was rejected by the president on the ground that it’s too close to the 2019 election. Now, the president may also say signing this bill now may be too close to the election and might cause confusion.”
He noted the governors have been crying out that conducting direct primaries is going to be much more expensive in order to compel Buhari to suspend action on the bill.
“The president is reluctant to give assent to the bill because the powerful governors in his party, the ruling party, are saying it is going to be much more expensive for them to run direct primaries,” he said.
“Therefore, throw away the baby and the bath water. But where they’re actually going is that those governors have not recovered from the shock of having electronic vote.
“That’s why they are asking the president to throw away that bill. They aren’t saying ‘take it back to the national assembly so that the area of direct primaries can be removed’.
